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911 call shows mom doubted half-sister took baby

A recording of a 911 call from the mother of a Wisconsin infant who was taken from his home last week shows the distraught woman didn't think her half-sister, who is now charged in the kidnapping, had committed the crime.

Authorities on Monday released the nine-minute recording of the call Brianna Marshall, 18, made when she realized her son was missing.

Marshall told dispatchers that her half-sister was in the home the night before and that she awoke to find her half-sister and the infant gone. But the mother also asserted that her half-sister wouldn't take her son.

"I called her, and she's balling her eyes out and told me to call the cops," Marshall said.

"But she's claiming she doesn't have the kid, correct?" the dispatcher asks.

"No, she wouldn't take my son," Marshall said.

Federal prosecutors charged the half-sister, Kristen Smith of Denver, with kidnapping Friday, hours after a police chief discovered the missing newborn, Kayden Powell, behind a gas station in West Branch, Iowa. The baby, wrapped in blankets and left in a plastic storage bin, was alive and well despite being left in freezing weather for up to 29 hours.

Smith, 31, is being held in her own cell at the Cedar County jail in Tipton, Iowa, while she awaits transfer to federal custody to face the kidnapping charge, Sheriff Warren Wethington said Monday.

"I don't feel comfortable putting her in with the general population due to the circumstances and media coverage other inmates would have seen," he said. "Some of the inmates over there are mothers, sisters, nieces and aunts. I don't think it would be in the interest for her safety."

The FBI alleges Smith took the boy from her half-sister's home in southern Wisconsin early Thursday, five days after Kayden was born, and began driving to Colorado. After Marshall discovered the baby was missing and called police, an officer reached Smith on her cellphone while she was passing through Iowa and instructed her to stop for questioning.

An officer who met Smith at a gas station in West Branch, Iowa, found no sign of Kayden. Smith repeatedly denied any connection to the disappearance, but she was taken into custody on a warrant from Texas charging her with tampering with government records and fraud.

About 29 hours later, the police chief found Kayden. The boy was reunited with his parents at an Iowa hospital, where he was discharged in good condition.

After the discovery, the FBI says Smith admitted that she took the baby and put him there. Investigators found online communications in which she falsely claimed to be pregnant or have given birth and a prosthetic pregnancy belly in her car.

Smith has an extradition hearing scheduled Friday on the Texas charge, but authorities said they believe her next move will be to Wisconsin because the federal case gets top priority.

Federal prosecutors in Madison have issued an arrest warrant for Smith, which gives them the power to place her in federal custody anytime. They will likely wait at least until a grand jury hands down an indictment, which could happen next week.